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That Summer
by: Andrew Greig

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780571204731
ISBN: 0571204732
Label: Faber and Faber
Manufacturer: Faber and Faber
Number Of Pages: 271
Publication Date: July 09, 2001
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Studio: Faber and Faber
Sales Rank: 15360

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
Andrew Greig, prize-winning novelist and poet, dedicates his latest novel "to the vanishing generation"--all who lived through the Second World War and That Summer, the summer of 1940 and the Battle of Britain. It is a heartfelt and eloquent homage to them all, but there is no distant memorialising here. Instead, its chapters, narrated alternately in two voices, Len's and Stella's, speak with wonderful immediacy and tactility. The naive and eager, yet quietly thoughtful Len is a 22-year-old fighter pilot and Stella, a radio operator who, a year older, is marginally more worldly. As the battle in the air intensifies, Stella sits at her screen watching the little falling blips, and imagining the young Fraulein on the other side of the Channel who is "my twin, my sister, my mirror. My enemy who is not my enemy", and worries about the foolhardiness of loving in wartime.

But love they do, in spite of and because of the exhausting dread, the anticipation and waiting, the ordinariness and impermanence of those haunting, sun-filled months. Noisy, frenetic pubbing, dancing, creeping home through the blackout darkness fills the ragged time in between Len's almost daily sorties in his "Hurri": "I thought of my fierce excitement just before I killed, and my numbness once I had, and then like Stella I said out loud, "What are we becoming?" And death permeates their very air.

On the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, Andrew Greig has written a captivatingly memorable elegy; its language is alert and vivid and its emotional reach both rich and subtle. --Ruth Petrie

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Just beautiful!
The immediacy of life during the Battle of Britain springs vividly from the pages of this beautifully narrated book. The main characters, Len and Stella, narrate their interactions, their feelings, as they live every minute as though it could be their last. And that is the reality of war.

Their most intimate thoughts are brilliantly brought to the reader so that you feel that you know their friends and acquaintances, especially Tad and Maddy, and you cannot help but care for them. They muse about their opposite numbers and this delicately bares the usually thorny subject of the futility of war and conflict.

Such a beautifully written story is bound to stir the emotions of any reader, and my memories of this book, both ... Read More:

Rating:

- suprising
i don't normally read love stories and go for books that are more historical but after reading just the first few pages of that summer i was totally hooked on the story and the characters i felt i personally new them when they were happy and safe i smiled and and felt content but also i had a lump in my throat and felt i could cry with them in there times of despair when close friends like Maddy were lost i normally read a book in two weeks but this one i could not put down and was finished within as many days

Rating:

- One of those books you just have to read
I think I bought this book one day with many others - not really paying attention to it - but as I read a lot of historical fiction I thought I would give it a go. I was amazed - the plot - the characters (whom you really come to care about and want to succeed) - the pace of the narrative was such that even when I got off my tube on the way to work - I couldn't put this book down. I rarely cry at the end of a novel and usually know when an author is trying to manipulate me - but this ending caught me by surprise - so I was unprepared for the emotional reaction I had. Please read it - travel back to the summer of 1940 on a wonderful journey.

Rating:

- brilliant
atmospheric, haunting, I am still thinking about it months after I read it. A must if you like novels about WW2

Rating:

- That Summer.
I listened to this novel on audio tape whilst travelling to and from work...where I do the modern version of Stella's job. I was late in on the morning when I was listening to the last couple of chapters, I had to pull over, I simply couldn't drive and listen at the same time! The teling of the tale of these 2 lovers reminds us of the sacrifices that our ancestors made at the same time as trying to live the live of youung men and women. A triumph, well done Mr Grieg.

Books : That Summer